Posted
by
kdawsonon Monday June 04, 2007 @01:42AM
from the reagan-won-this-didn't-he dept.

Melugo writes to let us know that Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned that US plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would force Moscow to target its weapons against Europe. This reader notes: "It feels like the Cold War all over again." "'If the American nuclear potential grows in European territory, we have to give ourselves new targets in Europe,' Putin said... 'It is up to our military to define these targets, in addition to defining the choice between ballistic and cruise missiles.'"

The Russian argument is that, although the US might claim that the defences are intended solely for use against Iranian missiles, they could have a role against Russia's own missiles which would destabilise the existing balance of power. The radar system is also capable of observing activity inside Russian airspace. Of course, the US will claim that they wouldn't use it like that, but there are many threads on/. which point out that, if a system can be abused, then at some point it will. US actions around the globe can appear to some to be expansionist and bullying. Now a lot of this is Russian rhetoric - i.e. 'they would say that, wouldn't they?' but with the US recently withdrawing from at least one treaty with Russia, with its current propensity of using force to resolve issues that could, and should, be resolved diplomatically and with Western forces having established a significant presence on many of Russia's borders, you should at least try to consider the situation from their point of view. No, I don't think that they are correct, but I can understand how they might feel.

Expansionist Russia vs expansionist USA... which do we believe, or disbelieve? Is USA really the "good guys" as they would claim?

After WWII Russia clearly was expansionist - Stalin used the oppportunity to seize lots of countries. But that was 60 years ago under a pyschopath. Then again, the initial assumption of the Bolsheviks was that they WOULD need to force worldwide revolution. But the hard core of Bolsheviks rapidly dissappeared too.

USA has never really been expanisionist in the same sense, but we can see they do like to make their influence felt strongly. In particular they want to trade on their terms and they want to be able to land their military in your country if they feel the need. And lately, there seems to be a much stronger push to force "little USAs" even if people don't actually want them. An assumption of moral superiority.

After WWII Russia clearly was expansionist - Stalin used the oppportunity to seize lots of countries. But that was 60 years ago under a pyschopath. Then again, the initial assumption of the Bolsheviks was that they WOULD need to force worldwide revolution. But the hard core of Bolsheviks rapidly dissappeared too.

So wait is Stalin bad (expansionist, psychopathic dictator) or good (the hard code of Bolsheviks rapidly disappeared) ?

USA has never really been expanisionist in the same sense, but we can see they do like to make their influence felt strongly. In particular they want to trade on their terms and they want to be able to land their military in your country if they feel the need. And lately, there seems to be a much stronger push to force "little USAs" even if people don't actually want them. An assumption of moral superiority.

Well, unlike Russia's America's presence and influence are, actually, beneficial. Even when achieved by questionable means. Compare, for example, the developments in Chile (US-supported dictatorship) vs. Cuba (USSR-supported dictatorship). Chile is the Latin America's top economy, while Cuba is the very lowest. Or compare the USSR-supported North with the US-supported South Koreas... Or look at how the US-assisted Western Europe recovered after WW2 and then consider the USSR-controlled Eastern Europe (including Eastern Germany!)

These are just the most obvious cases...

Every culture wants its presence felt (just listen to all the noise the French are making). But America's empire is the benevolent one — and the "way of life" it (strongly) suggests is the one of prosperity and comfort. And not necessarily due to the benevolence of all Americans — simply because for us to prosper, it is better to have prosperous (and peaceful!) neighbors. And we are willing to shove that prosperity and peacefulness down a throat or two...

Russians, on the other hand, just want an empire for the sake of empire — yes, we have huge rates of alcoholism, our population is declining, our former subjects all hate us, AIDS is rising, natural resources are our only sources of currency. But we are citizens of a Great Empire, you see, and that is somehow comforting on its own...

I'm not so sure about that. Russia controlled Eastern European states via Puppet governments. The US (and the UK) has done a very similar thing. For example, removing the democratically elected leader of Iran and replacing him with the Shah. Then there is US control over Cuba via various leaders which came to an end with Castro. There can be no doubt that the US has tried to control governments in Central and South America and this has lead to violent backlashes, e.g. the Sandinistas in Nacaragua.

removing the democratically elected leader of Iran and replacing him with the Shah

This bit of leftist mythos is a pet peeve for me, probably because it had me fooled for awhile. That "democratically elected leader" was a Communist, and, in the manner of all Communists who come to power by election, promptly set about destroying the democratic institutions that brought him to power. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, even Hitler was duly & democratically elected chancellor by the Reichstag. Does

Expansionist Russia vs expansionist USA... which do we believe, or disbelieve? Is USA really the "good guys" as they would claim?

If you look at things in a different light, you might see the world as eventually coming together. No longer separate nations, but one global economy, one currency, one government. But long before then, there will be struggles for power in the economic area, political area, military, human rights, resources, etc.

To answer your big question, there's a core of american values that is shared by many cultures that I strongly believe I want to see on top and dominant in the world. But I do not see our current american society really sticking to this core anymore. So I guess I don't really have an answer to the question.

The Russian argument is that, although the US might claim that the defences are intended solely for use against Iranian missiles, they could have a role against Russia's own missiles which would destabilise the existing balance of power.

That's a more logical argument to make against placing defenses in Alaska or the Canadian North. Interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe won't be very effective against missiles launched over the pole and aimed at North America.

you should at least try to consider the situation from their point of view

That's fair. But they should consider the situation from our point of view. For better or worse Americans remember the Iranian hostage crisis. The first thought of many Americans when they think of Islam is of people willing to strap on explosives and kill themselves if they can take a few Westerners out with them. Combine all of that with the memory of 9/11 and the fact that the leader of Iran has called for the destruction of Israel (a nation that for better or worse is typically highly regarded in the United States) and denies the Holocaust and you can start to understand how Americans feel about the prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.

I'm not saying that any of those feelings are justified or legitimate. I for one realize that Iran had no connection to 9/11 and that most Iranians are moderate and decent people. I for one realize that we've given the Iranian people lots of justifiable reasons for hating our guts at worst and for being wary of us at best. But that still doesn't change the fact that on some level they scare the hell out of me. Given that fact I will support any defensive efforts my Government makes to negate any Iranian missile threat aimed at the United States. And while I do not like a lot of things about Israel I would want to see us defend them against Iranian aggression.

Hopefully it won't come to any of that. Bush will be gone soon -- hopefully to be replaced by somebody more reasonable and versed in the language of diplomacy and a foreign policy based more on realism then on ideology. With any luck maybe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be gone soon too.

Point One: Who defines defensive? Missile Shield == missiles. Russian missiles == missiles. Defensive defines how they are used, not what they are.

An interceptor missile that can only be used to shoot down an ICBM or a RV (reentry vehicle) is a defensive weapon by nature. Do you really think that a kinetic kill vehicle can wipe out a city?

Point Two: You, and the rest of the US are terrified of the Iranian boogeyman

So is Europe, apparently, because they have largely supported our efforts in this area. Indeed, they were leading the effort against the Iranian nuclear program for quite awhile. Russia (and China to a lesser extent) are the ones throwing up roadblocks.

Those of us in Europe, caught between two monolithic, stupid, agressive, violent and unreasonable powers are beginning to wonder why we need either of you.

Those of you in Europe wonder why you need the United States and/or Russia? Maybe because those of you in Europe couldn't stop Hitler yourselves? Blame the French and the British. If they could have handled him then maybe the US and Russia would never have been involved in Europe.

Perhaps you should be more worried about the EU turning round and atomic-bitchslapping you both - because that is, overwhelmingly, what the population seems to want right now, regardless of whther that's a good strategic choice.

The EU doesn't have the means to "atomic-bitchslap" the United States or Russia. The EU could hurt either country very badly but would be utterly wiped out in return. And that seems like an awful lot of posturing to be making when the EU can't even agree on internal trade quotas or policies. And a lot of Europeans I've met seem to think that the EU is nothing more then a means for Paris and Berlin to dominate Europe and they are less then happy to be a part of it.

Fuck You, Fuck the US, Fuck Russia, and get the fuck out of our countries you arrogant pricks.

Kind of ironic since you are posting on an American website. I bet you are even using American software on your computer. Oh, and your apartment is probably heated with natural gas from Russia;) But, by all means, let's isolate the EU from the US and Russia. I bet you'd fall upon yourselves within a matter of decades.

You're joking right? Ill hand it to the Brits for holding out but they could not get a boot onto the continant soil without the help of the US. Hitler being stupid enough to engage Russia did not hurt either. If the US and/or Russia did not become involved the *best* outcome for Europe is England suing for piece, and Vici France pretending to be a real nation.

"
Now consider Germany who got subdued when Russia, USA, England and France ganged up on them

Just look at how the US responded in the Cuban missile crisis. It's typical American double standards all over again.

Far from it, its likely you already know this but just in case, the Cuban missile crisis arose because the installations in Cuba were not a defensive system, they were R-12 Dvina [wikipedia.org] medium range missiles carrying mega-ton class nuclear warheads. The proximity of the installations presented a first strike capability with little to no warning for US civil defense plans and the objective of such a system is not defense but to kill as many U.S. civilians as possible if and when they decided to use the system.

Comparing the installation of an anti-missile defense system to a first strike attack installation is hardly grounds for a double standard arguement. If anyone should be concerned it is the Europeans as the fallout from any overhead anti-missile strike is likely to be above them.

I understand that. But the fact of the matter is that they are in a useless location in terms of defending against any Russian ICBMs launched at the United States. The fact of the matter is that Russia can easily overwhelm any defense system we can put up with current technology. Barring a new arms race this isn't likely to change any time soon.

The only reason the USA could justify an ABM system pointed at Iran would be the Iranian leaders being insane

The leader of one country calling for another country to be "wiped off the map" doesn't give you pause?

What on earth makes you think the neo-cons have suddenly started telling the truth?

Have you not noticed that the US are building "shields" in the Pacific and have them planned for the eastern edge of the the EU?

Miss the fact that an invasion of Iraq puts a large chunk of the US military slap in the middle of the chess board...err...middle east?

Ooooo and then there are little details like Pakistan, a few decades back they were a stone age soviet ally, now they're a nuclear armed US ally on the door-step of the Caspian sea. NATO stomping around Afghanistan looking to kill the people who the CIA trained and supplied to kick the soviets out (OBL/Taliban).

OTOH: Ten anti-missle misslies (by themselves) are certainly not a realistic defense against Russia (not even enogh to stop Isreal) but I'm sure they will be very effective at stopping Iranian WMD's that only the neo-cons can find.

Speaking of Iran reminds me of another "supreme council", do you think that maybe the veto holders in the UNSC are stll fighting each other in proxy wars just as they have done since the end of WWII? Has the underlying "competition" for ever dwindling resources somehow been solved or have the peices just moved around on the "chess board"?

Meditate and discuss: The real moral behind the story of Adam and Eve is: Don't let anyone spoonfeed you apple-pie.

he weapons are being placed in those countries because the cold war has had a bit of resurgence lately

You realize that a Russian ICBM aimed at the United States wouldn't be within range of any interceptors in Eastern Europe anyway, right? It would likely come in over the pole. That's why we put all of our early warning systems in the Canadian wilderness back in the day.

Aside from that, I'd be pretty sure that Moscow is already targeting most of Europe anyway

Officially nobody is targeting anybody. In reality you can target a modern ICBM with a few keystrokes once the orders come down. But who cares anyway? This is just sabre-rattling. And given the choice between stateless terrorists flying their airplanes into our buildings and the classical game of brinkmanship between nation states I'll take the Cold War any day.

If Russia launched missiles at the U.S., they would not fly over Europe. If Iran launched missiles at the U.S., they would fly over Eastern Europe. Go check an azimuthal map [dxatlas.com] and see for yourself.

Just do the damned trajectory math. It does not work for much anything except stuff being flung from Tehran.

Share your math, because I don't see how. Placing a missile base in Poland, with, if the publicity is to be believed (and there are more unsuccessful tests than successful ones) the capability to shoot down incoming missiles two minutes after detection means that unless Russia is going to put missiles right on its border with Europe rather than their current locations then it is more than capable o

Share your math, because I don't see how. Placing a missile base in Poland, with, if the publicity is to be believed (and there are more unsuccessful tests than successful ones) the capability to shoot down incoming missiles two minutes after detection means that unless Russia is going to put missiles right on its border with Europe rather than their current locations then it is more than capable of intercepting missiles inbound from the Urals.

The point for the US is that the missile shield does not protect the *US* from Russian missiles. And that point is correct. Russian missiles launched at the US travel north over the polar icecap, not across Europe. You don't take down a ballistic missile by launching a non-ballistic missile directly behind it. It won't be able to outrun the ballistic missile. Preferably you take it out by launching a missile at a right angle to it when it is launched or it is re-entering the atmosphere. The missile bases in Europe are useful for this purpose.

And of course why would you be protecting against Iran when (right now) the Shabab 4/5/6 missiles are theoretical? If anything the major threat to the US is (still) North Korea.

The US has moved significant anti-missile resources to Japan, including several AEGIS cruisers and Army PAC-3 systems. You need to pay more attention to the news.

Polish anti-Russian sentiment is historical constant over very wide period. Poland too had its share of imperial ambitions and plans of advancing to the East, but Russians resisted and over time expanded on their own until the two were not in the same league anymore. However, Pols never actually accepted the difference in "weight" and were actively working on "setting things right" ever since and as long as they were free (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheism [wikipedia.org]), in some cases even when they weren't, by certain influential representatives of their national political tradition during the time of Cold War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski [wikipedia.org]) .

Between WWII and Berlin Wall fall, Poland was basically "occupied enemy country" just like DDR. It is not a coincidence that it was Poland who broke Soviet block in Cold War. US provided the support and services, but Poland put the neck on the line.

(Sometimes I wonder if destruction of opportunistic, sitting-on-its-hands, have-done-nothing-for-our-cause Yugoslavia was timed so that heroic Poland would get the reward of Western investments that would otherwise had gone down south where they could had yielded higher profits faster at that time? There are some remote indications that Yugoslav tragedy wasn't quite spontaneous inside self-combustion, but time will tell, once when it won't matter anymore or would conveniently be rationalized retroactively. Anyhow, most of the Yugoslav shards are still grateful - it seemed they could end up much worse, so the damage, drop and setback they experienced are acceptable - and although the one that got outcast and played villain in the show is now pushed toward Russia, it is almost completely neutralized, kept in check, strategically worthless, doesn't stand a chance in a conflict and makes Russia's rep even more bad. It is obviously a bait on a bear trap, although the mechanism of the trap is not yet apparent. But I digress...)

Therefore, I am not quite sure if "former puppet state" sticker on Poland can hold... perhaps "former hostage state" would be more appropriate one.

In case of Iran, suspected NPT violation. In case of North Korea, I believe they left the NPT, in which case its no loner a violation.

They made a promise and went back on it, or look very close to doing so.

In other words, we don't know, but we THINK Iran might be violating the NPT.

It would be similar to argue that while we don't know, we think you are planning some terrorist attack since well, you had this sudden interest in Islam and also started to learn Arab.. we don't have any proof, but j

The Cuban Missile Crisis is what that post was about, I assume. It is a stupid comparison to make since that was over 40yrs ago and during a period when we almost blew the shit out of each other and "ended the world." By the way, another BIG difference is that the Russians were doing this in "secret." They actually did a pretty good job of getting missiles in place and setup before the US even knew they were there. I think the GP should really read up on history before trying to compare anti-ballistic m

That is false. It actually will protect Europe from Russian, Chinese, NK, and Iranian launches. Why? Because this gets the rockets in cruise phase as opposed to boost or targeting. So anything that is coming overheard or just to the side will be blocked. The real issue is, how many missiles are we looking to put in? Not many. Russia can easily overrun our number with current inventory. The simple solution for Russia is to have verification of launchers/missiles. But it would be better for everyone if Bush would spend more time talking to Putin about this.

It doesn't matter what the current missiles CAN do, its what future missiles COULD do and what the Russians THINK America wants to do.

To clarify. Poland and the Czech Republic are on Russia's doorstep, less than a generation ago they were firmly inside the orbit of Moscow. Now, not only are they members of NATO but they are enthusiastically embracing the policies of the US military. This is bound to set red lights flashing in the Kremlin. Imagine the reaction in Washinton if Ottawa announced it was placing Russian missiles in Ontario - the US would see it as a grave provocation within its sphere of influence.

Secondly, long term treaty aims are to reduce the amount of MIRVing on missiles AND to reduce to the number of missiles. The Russians are already coming from behind on this, they have large fleets of liquid fuelled SS18 missiles, well past their sell-by date, but capable of putting 10 warheads pretty much anywhere in the US. If they go down the treaty route they'll find themselves surrounded by anti-missile stations that MAY be upgradeable to take out Russian missiles.

Russia was humiliated by the end of the Cold War, it lost its Empire, saw its beliefs collapse and then allowed its economy to be destroyed by Western 'reformers'; the end result was millions of Russians in horrifying poverty, the collapse of the economy, social system, education, and in large parts of the country, law-and-order. Now, it has discovered it has unbelievable power in the form of its energy reserves, it has massive amounts of foreign currency sloshing around, AND in the form of Putin, the fabled Russian strong man who can unite the country.

American policy towards Russia under Bush has been a disaster, it has provoked confrontation after confrontation, rolled its tanks up to the borders, abbrogated long-standing treaties and acted like Russia was a backward nation. Putin is using national resentment to give America (and Britain in particular) a serious case of the jitters.

Whether American missiles can destroy Russian missiles is almost immaterial, it gives the Russians a chance to throw their not-inconsiderable weight around, and it offers their, let be honest, stunning missile designers, plenty of opportunities to bring in a new generation of planet killers. Putin can now make sure he's succeeded by a fellow strong man and Russia can really start to influence European politics - at the end of the day, it's going to be the gas taps as much as the warheads that will make Europe gradually turn towards the East. And that may not be a good thing.

But you can be sure this will also have been noticed in Beijing - another cash-rich country will soon be pouring money into solid-fuelled, MIRVed missiles. China is almost certain to build a missile submarine fleet and expand its own Pacific fleet - which brings another force into direct conflict with US strategic interests. At the end of the day, can the US compete in an arms race against TWO superpowers?

Sorry, no. The Russian people were not, in general, in poverty in the 80's towards the end of the USSR. Sure, they were a way behind the comforts of the west, and the farmers were worse off than the urbanites (by design in Marxism, never could get my head around that), but things were generally manageable. Then they went free-market all at once and most existing organisations collapsed - things got a LOT worse for many people.Why do you think so many Russians look back on the USSR with nostalgia? It's not j

The hyperinflation of the Yeltsin years was a direct result of Western economic advisors enforcing a rapid transition to market economics. All of this was done under the 'Washington Consensus' of the IMF, World Bank, and US Treasury. At first, they opened the markets to imports without any attempt at preparing the domestic market, then watched as domestic producers went out of business and capital fled the country in the form of buying imports with ever devaluing roubles. To cure the hyperinflation they'd unleashed, the advisors then enforced an austerity regime involving a lack of credit, high interest rates (killing off those industries that could have survived with access to loans) and removal of subsidies on basics like bread and energy which hit the poorest people hardest.

According to The World Bank (not known for its enthusiasm for Communism) 1.5% of the population lived in poverty (less than $25 per month) in the last days of Communism; that went up to somewhere between 39% and 49% by 1993. This is a collapse akin to that of the Great Depression in the West - and look what nasties that spawned.

The Communist economic system needed to be dismantled, but the way it was done in Russia was barbaric. We botched it, now we're reaping the consequences.

I don't think it has anything to do with any of this. This anti-missile system (which probably doesn't work anyway) is supposed to protect against a threat which doesn't even exist. The main problem Putin and others have with it is the perceived loss of face. This might be exacerbated by the fact that some factions in Russia haven't gotten over the dismemberment of the USSR and still view the former satellite states as their playground even though a lot of them are now part of the EU (which for some obscure reason still seems to allow the deployment of the US toys on its territory).

I don't think it has anything to do with any of this. This anti-missile system (which probably doesn't work anyway) is supposed to protect against a threat which doesn't even exist. The main problem Putin and others have with it is the perceived loss of face.

In other words the Russian and probably the Chinese leadership as well is just as delusional as that of the USA. Why am I not surprised?:-D

This might be exacerbated by the fact that some factions in Russia haven't gotten over the dismemberment of the USSR and still view the former satellite states as their playground even though a lot of them are now part of the EU (which for some obscure reason still seems to allow the deployment of the US toys on its territory).

That's what they used to call 'spheres of influence' [wikipedia.org]. The US seems to think that the Russian and Chinese spheres of influence end at their national borders and that everything else is in the US sphere of influence. Mind you, this isn't as silly as it sounds. For a long time after the end of the cold war this was a de facto reality; the USA became the dominant world po

Launches of suborbital missiles that fly over Africa, Antarctica, Pacific Ocean, North Pole, and in the end fall on Europe flying over Poland.Or the ones that make a big circle through Russia or Atlantic Ocean and come back to Europe from North.

Check location of Europe on the map. Check location of Iran. Then check location of Poland. Then try to draw possible trajectories of missiles launched from Iran, flying to most of Europe, that could be intercepted by missiles from Poland.

The system is capable of taking out missiles on the side, not just those that are overhead. What they can not do, is intercept against a missile that is fired at greater than a 90 angle (probably even less). IOW, it is designed to protect mostly Europe, but it does offer protection to NA from Iran (not a big deal for another 5-8 years) and some of China. I would guess that if these are accepted, then America will most likely put one up in either Canada or Alaska to offer North America protection from China,

"The Economist" recently published a concise summary of relations between the West and Russia [economist.com]. The summary stated, "DEMONSTRATORS thrashed on the streets of Moscow; the impending mugging of another big energy firm, this one part-owned by BP; cyberwarfare against a small neighbour; the bellicose testing of a new ballistic missile, supposedly able to bypass the American missile-defence system about which the Kremlin fulminates--and all that was only in the past fortnight. When the G8 group of rich countries meets next week in Germany, one of its biggest if unadvertised concerns will be the snarling behaviour of one of its own members, Vladimir Putin's Russia--and the urgent need for a more coherent Western policy towards it."

One of the biggest mistakes that we Westerners committed was to admit the Russians into the G-8. The original G-7 was intended to be the group of leading industrialized democracies committed to Western values.

We admitted the Russians in the hope that, although Russia was still highly non-Western (in, for example, its treatment of sexual-orientation or ethnic minorities), being lenient on Russia would encourage the Russians to modernize their society along Western lines. Well, we were wrong. Just last week, the Russian police smiled in approval as ordinary Russians [nytimes.com] violently beat up participants in a demonstration calling for rights for homosexuals. Some of the victims of the violence were European politicians who had participated into the demonstration.

The Russians make a mockery of the G-8 and its principles. Now, Putin is idly threatening to point his nuclear missiles at Eastern Europe. Nuclear annihilation is serious business. Before Russia joined the G-8, no member of the G-7 ever threatened nuclear annihilation against a prosperous, Western democracy.

The time has come for us to end this nonsense. We should expel Russia from the G-8, restoring the orignal name of "G-7".

In a report [bloomberg.com] issued today, the Bloomberg news service is also asking why Russia is in the G-8. The report states, "The tensions are again raising questions about why Putin is even a member of the [G-8] club. The original Group of Six leading industrialized nations -- the U.S., Japan, U.K., France, Germany and Italy -- first met in 1975, and Canada joined a year later. While Russia's economy is only the world's 10th largest -- behind nonmembers China and Spain -- it was admitted to the club in 1997 as President Boris Yeltsin struggled to manage the nation's transition to a capitalist democracy. G-8 membership was an 'advance payment' that assumed Russia would gradually move closer to the values of the other members, Volk says. Among leaders of the other nations, there were 'a lot of illusions that by engaging Russia they can influence Russia,' Volk says. That hasn't happened. These days, 'there's a consensus among every major western country' that Russia is going backward on democracy, says Masha Lipman, a political analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center."

When the Kremlin threatens nuclear annihilation against Eastern Europe, the very least that we can do is to expel Russia from the G-8. Expulsion from the G-8 does not terminate relations between Russia and the West. Those relations shall continue. However, expulsion does send a strong, symbolic message that we Westerners condemn the authoritarian impulses of the Russian government.

When the Kremlin threatens nuclear annihilation against Eastern Europe, the very least that we can do is to expel Russia from the G-8.

That's exactly the kind of escalation mentality that brought us the Cold War. Russia is NOT threatening Eastern Europe with nuclear annihilation. Putin simply stated that the missile defense bases will be included in the Russian military's nuclear target list. That makes a lot of sense and is actually a measured response. If the Russians planted anti-missile-missile batteries around Guadalajara tomorrow, Bush would have them bombed the day after. Putin simply cannot afford that US military types begin to believe they could "win" a nuclear exchange because that would threaten the very existence of Russia. That is the only button you can push to make him behave aggressively right now, and Bush is pushing it, hard. Witness Putin's lame reaction when US troops landed in Afghanistan - Russia does not want conflict and cannot afford conflict even if it wanted it.

Speaking as someone who's directly interested in this: the best you (Americans) can do (as a nation) is stop threatening Russia (with starvation or nukes) and normalize your relations with China while you're at it. No-one much minds that you're carrying a big stick, as long as you walk softly. Build missile defense if you so wish - on your own territory. Try to change mentalities and regimes if you so wish - but not by force of weapons. And finally, and most importantly, _bring_the_boys_back_home. The US military, as it is now deployed, seems ready to make war on the whole world. That is insane.

Take down the morons running America, get a new government that is strong enough to afford putting the leash on Israel, effect regime change in Iran (no, nuking Teheran does not count as regime change, yes, it is possible and has been done before, no, bringing back the Shah's cronies is also not an option) and re-instate the kind of policy that has kept NK in check for as long as Kim Ir Sen was in power. Better yet, give China carte blanche in NK - they'd like nothing more than to serve Kim Jong Il the traditional last cup o' tea, if only paranoid americans would not fear them more than they fear the Koreans. Those are the real nuclear threats, not the two paper-tiger ex-superpowers.

Western values like allowing friend countries to invade and occupy foreign countries (Turkey over Cyprus) while doing the exact opposite thing with non-friend countries?

Western values like increasing the price of imported goods from Africa in order to protect domestic production?

Western values like economically supporting all the 'orange' revolutions in former soviet union countries in order to get the geopolitical advantage?

Western values like dismantling Yugoslavia because the southern part has the largest deposits of a rare metal which USA wants for replacing enhanced uranium in its weapons?

Western values like lying about WMDs in Iraq?

Western values like taking the culture of one country and arbitrarily assign it to another (yeap, I am talking about the so called country of 'Macedonia', one of the biggest thefts of cultural identity in history) ?

Western values like giving money under the table to enemies of Chaves so as that he is overthrown, even if he is legally elected?

Western values like illegally giving money to Israel under the table, as well as advanced technology that no other one has?

Western values like don't doing anything about Israel's 200 nuclear warheads, even when they openly admit it?

Western values like privatizing everything and leaving over 60 million americans in the mercy of god, without medical insurance and health care? and with private health care companies sucking everything out of their clients?

Western values like banks increasing their profits 500% each year while the average payment of an american employee has remained almost the same in the last 30 years?

Western values like stealing ancient artifacts from all around the globe and displaying them in your museums?

Western values like changing the borders of other countries (for example in the Balkans) so as you can divide and conquer, while in Africa there are thousands of slaughtered people every day in Sudan, yet you say 'it's not your problem'??? (as Angela Merkel told us a few days ago)...

Western values like not destroying the drug factories and plantations of south America, even if you have accurately mapped all the globe with your satellites?

Western values like not doing anything for the environment because it will hurt your wallet?

What western values are you talking about? all your values were invented somewhere else, and you might not know it, but almost all your habits and things you use daily come from other countries that you bash as 'non-western'. Your clothing habbits probably come from Europe. Your food from Europe and Latin America. Your language comes from Europe. Your political system comes from Europe. Your music comes from Africa. Your religion comes from Middle East. Your sports come from Europe and the Far East. The foundations of your technology come from West Germany, where almost all top scientists came to USA before and after WWII.

Get a grip on reality. The battle between USA and Russia is far from over, because Russia got the biggest natural energy resources, and USA is scared to death about Europe depending on Russia for its energy needs. That about sums it up, really.

What are you talking about? You're going back to 1973 for Pinochet in Chile. He's dead, for Christ's sake. Chile has had a deomocratic government for ~18 years.

Central American countries? Who? I don't think anyone would believe that the Contra affair was a swell idea, but there's no "dictatorship" there. Guatemala? The coup there was in 1954: Carter cut off military aid in 1979.

Pakistan? Musharaff is an asshat, but would you have us do? Depose him? There's not much choice but to deal with him. And holy Jesus, can you imagine the cries of "interference" if we did depose him? Damned if you do, damned if you don't. We've put pressure on him, and I think he is finding out that being a dictatorial asshat can be hard work: his attempt to remove the Supreme Court Justice will hopefully moderate his stupidity.

Western values like allowing friend countries to invade and occupy foreign countries (Turkey over Cyprus) while doing the exact opposite thing with non-friend countries?

Oh, yeah, totally we should have stopped that. Everyone loves us when we interfere. Hey, is it the United States or France that wants to (or could) keep Turkey out of the EU (god forbid all those poor Muslims get freedom of movement)?

Western values like increasing the price of imported goods from Africa in order to protect domestic production?

Yes, you're absolutely right. No one except the United States has protections on agriculture. Not the Europeans, not the Japanese, no one except the United States. We must prostrate ourselves before the will of all international fuckwits.

Western values like economically supporting all the 'orange' revolutions in former soviet union countries in order to get the geopolitical advantage?

Instead we should have let Putin install his toady. God forbid we support the Ukrainian people's choice. It's a little known fact that every single person that camped in the city's square was a CIA employee: wow, huh?! I guess that Putin miscalculated the dose on the dioxin poisoning there, huh? "Geopolitical advantage"? Give me a break.

"Western values like dismantling Yugoslavia because the southern part has the largest deposits of a rare metal which USA wants for replacing enhanced uranium in its weapons?"

You smoke too much crack. We "dismantled" Yugoslavia? What, we went back in time and incited the hundreds of years of historical hatreds. We invaded them and kept them under an iron curtain until the friction of authoritarian rule from above caused them to explode?

Western values like lying about WMDs in Iraq?

Bush is a fucking retard. I don't think anyone is denying this.

Western values like taking the culture of one country and arbitrarily assign it to another (yeap, I am talking about the so called country of 'Macedonia', one of the biggest thefts of cultural identity in history) ?

Totally. We assigned McDonalds and Nike to go in there and set that up. We R teh Awesomez!

Western values like giving money under the table to enemies of Chaves so as that he is overthrown, even if he is legally elected?

Maybe some evidence with those accusations, hrm? Our approach to Chavez is, "Oh god, what a nutcase". Do you know *anything* about

The parent post was referring to, I think, the military junta under Papadopoulos, during 1967 - 1974. The junta had close connections with the CIA and opened Greece to US espionage bases and missile launch sites. Papadopoulos was a fascist and admirer of Hitler. Bill Clinton has made a public apology for the US support of the regime.

I call Putin's bullshit. Defense is defense, it's not necessarily aimed against US. Iran and North Korea could come up with some primitive missiles in a few years. A mere defense mechanism doesn't "force" anyone to target nukes at a peaceful country.

It's the whole different matter that the missile shield is ineffective and a colossal waste of money.

Sure, North Korea could come up with some primitive missiles in a few years... that's why the US must deploy interceptors in Europe, instead of Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea. Same goes about Iran: the US has huge military presence in Turkey, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates, why not use those bases?

Besides, something tells me that if Russia attempted to deploy similar ICBM countermeasures at Cuban or Venezuelan territory, all hell would break loose. Just because somebody is at peace with you now, doesn't mean that he won't be at war with you some time later, especially if you're dealing with the world's mightiest and most aggressive superpower.

If you're a russian expatriate, you might be interested in this little fact: right before WW2, there were a _lot_ of voices in the USA advocating _carpet-bombing_ the USSR with nukes preemptively. Just, you know, because they happen to be a _potential_ adversary.

What stopped them was when the USSR finally got their own nukes and you couldn't bomb them without getting bombed right back.

Just to put things into perspective: The USSR had until that point behaved like a pretty loyal ally. Sure, they had some different ideas about the economy, and securing their own sphere of influence, but by and large they were still grateful for the help in WW2. They stopped when they were told to stop, and stuff like that.

E.g., the reason why today there is a North Korea and a South Korea is because the USSR got asked by the allies to declare war on Japan after it's done with Germany. The USSR had little to gain there, but it honoured its treaty obligations. So it did take Manchuria from Japanese (dealing quite a bit of economic damage to Japan), and handed it over to China. And then proceeded to take Korea from Japan too. So the USA got a bit scared and asked Stalin to stop at the 38'th parallel. Noone actually expected that Stalin would actually stop at the 38'th parallel, but again, the guy actually did what his allies wanted, and actually stopped there.

E.g., a little known fact is that on 10 March 1952, Stalin actually proposed to let Germany reunite, if the result stays neutral (i.e., doesn't join either block.) It was the western powers that refused that.

Stalin was a bad guy, but in regards to the western powers he was _not_ at the moment the enemy. The USSR was in fact still by and large an ally of the USA, a member of the alliance that had just won WW2.

Even the later degrading into Cold War was slightly more a result of USA brinkmanship games than of USSR's doing any evil. The western capitalist world had gotten its panties in a knot at the idea of communism and became obsessed with opposing and thwarting the USSR at every step. The USSR was treated as the enemy, complete with violating their airspace daily, which helped deteriorate diplomatic relations very very fast.

I'm not saying that to defend Stalin or communism, I'm saying it to put it into perspective who did those guys want to nuke: an _ally_.

Without the USSR developping a counter-threat quickly, chances are you wouldn't even be here to brag about being a russian expatriate. Unless you immigrated some time in the 50's, you or your parents might well now be casualties in a statistic, because someone preemptively nuked Russia wholesale.

A missile shield turns all that right on its head. If the USA had a shield back then, it would have nuked Russia by now. The moment one side is immune to retaliation, it can threaten the other side with impunity, or even make good on those threats.

At any rate, maybe that little historical detail is why Putin is now getting his own underwear in a knot.

This is the same "targeting" rhetoric from the early 1990s all over again. Pretending that whether missiles are 'targeted' at some city somewhere, really changes the strategic position at all.

It's bullshit. Where a missile is 'targeted' has almost no real-world meaning. You can re-target a missile in a few seconds; in fact all submarine-launched and mobile missile systems have to be targeted right before launch, because the trajectories need to take into account the launch position.

The only scenario in which the 'default target' or preselected target of a missile might matter, would be an accidental launch. But even then, having the missiles aimed at neutral territory might not buy you much, because the unexpected launch itself might be perceived as hostile and engender a response; you can't depend on the mis-targeting for security -- that needs to be built-in to the command-and-control systems absolutely.

To cast little bit more light on the topic. America decided to locate this shield in Poland and Czech. Since the decision had been taken, Russia started to threaten both countries, we (Poland) have export embargo (for example for meat) and some "warnings" and "good advices" from Russia. Now they try to convince Us other way around...
My posting is little bit biased - Forgive me, but I spent all my childhood under the Russian occupation and regime in Poland, sorry, could not resist. So before anyone starting shouting at Bush please - thing twice. First Russia occupied Poland, Czech, Slovakia etc for 40 Years, then, after the collapse of the communism, they were against joining NATO by Our, independent then, countries. Then they are against this shield. Technically shield located partially in Poland and in Czech is no threat for Russia at all, they now this. Also, technically, this shield cannot defend nuclear attack for this part of Europe. Please Russia understand that You are Our "supervisor" no longer, we are independed countries and taking Our decisions Ourselves.
lima

To follow up on this excellent post, I'd like to point out that I'm American and I've spent a good deal of time in Ukraine in the past. My Ukrainian ex-girlfriend had 2 great-grandparents who were murdered by Stalin's henchmen while her grandfather was forced to watch for the "crime" of supposedly being Ukrainian nationalists. Putin is drunk with power and money thanks to Russia's oil and gas reserves. Times are more or less good in Russia for people who live in bigger cities. Even for common people. They're making more money than ever before and they credit Putin. He not only has little real opposition, but what little there is has been suppressed by him and he's stacked the deck to be sure that his party and his eventual hand picked successor will become the next president. Putin is an ex-KGB guy and he laments the breakup of the USSR. His wet dream is to rebuild the USSR, but I think at some level he knows that won't happen, so he'd prefer to have vassal states that pay homage to him and give him a virtual USSR to rule. He flipped out when Ukraiane protested the bogus presidential elections in late 2004 and eventually elected Yushchenko in a fair election. He wasn't happy with what happened in Georgia first in the Rose Revolution, but I think until Ukraine elected Yushchenko, he thought he could just bully Georgia back into line. I have little doubt that Putin would love to tell all of the old Warsaw Pact countries what to do just like in the "good old days". The US has stated that they intend to put 10, yes, 10 interceptor missles in Poland. Since Russia has well over 1000 nuclear missles, this is just more of Putin's nonsense that such interceptor missles are a "threat" to Russia. My ex-girlfriend and her family knew first hand what kind of "love" Mother Russia gives to her children and I can't say I blame thelima for not being interested in falling under Russian influence again.

First, Putin is definitly a person who does not believe in democracy and free press. Putin also clearly see murder as a political tool. But, Putin cannot be blamed for what Stalin did, the same way todays German politicians cannot be blamed for Hitler's actions.

Putin is drunk with power and money thanks to Russia's oil and gas reserves.

And the EU and USA is just slightly intoxicated with the power and money we got? You cannot blame Russia for gr

...makes me wish the EU to take a stronger stand. This isn't the cold war anymore where Europe was divided and I don't appreciate power plays over my head when the EU has more than enough economic might to not have to deal with this crap coming from the USA trying to install weapons in Europe and the Russians reacting to it.

Let's drop the pretense that Russia is in any way a modern democracy please. Elections are a joke, independent journalists are permanently silenced [usatoday.com], and if you didn't order it you are certainly didn't doing much to investigate it. You are bullying surrounding nations as soon as they take any steps towards democracy or independence from you or displease you in any way [timesonline.co.uk]. Fascists [bbc.co.uk] and neo-Nazis [bbc.co.uk] run rampant in the streets, with the police literarily looking on with arms crossed doing nothing.

And even with all this, Putin has soaring approval ratings, proving once again that nationlist pride is one of the most dangerous memes ever.

The Russian objections to the US missile defense system are silly. Even if the system ever worked perfectly (it doesn't), it would never be able to stop more then a handful of missiles. Russia has more then a handful of missiles. The only thing the missile defense system can do is blunt an extremely small scale nuclear attack by ballistic missiles. Launch anything BUT that exact type of attack, and the entire missile defense system is worthless. Beyond this, the US has offered to include Russia in the shield, share their tracking data, in general, make a worthless defense against Russian attack even more worthless by making it transparent. North Korea, Iran, and anyone else thinking of how much fun it would be to hold a dozen nukes should be worried. For Russia, this is a joke.

Putin really is just playing to scare his population and score a few 'against America' points. It is a cry for attention and a desperate pleading to PLEASE start some verbal shit to keep his population focused on foreign 'threats' rather than some of the more crushing domestic issues Russia faces. If the Dems kill the program, he will happily take credit for scaring the American weapons of Russia oppression away... when the reality is that the Dems have always found the program to be a waste of money and are happy to tear into a lame duck president on the issue... not because Putin is a scary guy.

Look, the ballistic missile defense system is a joke. We already have one; it is called a few thousand nuclear missiles that can hit anywhere in the globe. I would be the first person to advocate throwing this worthless money hog on a chopping block, or at least relegating it to a lab for more 'research'. That said, Putin's saber rattling has nothing to do with reality. Putin knows that the ballistic missile defense program is a joke, and even if it wasn't a joke, it is only effective against nations with less then a dozen nukes... and it is safe to say Russia has more then a dozen nukes laying around these days.

If you want a real headline, make it this "Putin recall history and tries to invoke Cold War to score domestic political points, Americans continue to piss money into the wind and uphill". This is a domestic issue getting bounced around by a global media and nothing more.

(If you are a U.S. citizen and you don't like my summary of U.S.
government corruption, you must write your own. You can't say you love your
country if you abandon thinking clearly when your country is in trouble.)

Perhaps Putin is afraid of what the US might do if Mutually Assured Destruction was no longer mutually assured? After all, while a good shield can help save lives, it can also cost a lot more if the bearer of the shield no longer has to worry about the consequences of drawing his sword.

Bush and Putin are geting together for a nice friendly sleepover in Connecticut. They get into their pajamas, have a pillow fight, and are sipping the hot chocolate that Barabara Bush brings them.

Bush: So, Putey. We have a problem here in the US. We don't have a rubber stamp Congress any more, but our milkies [that's what he calls the Military-Industrial Complex] need their allowance. We need some sort of way to make sure that they'll be getting their money even with a hostile Congress. A big threat of some sort, just like during the Cold War - you guys had everyone so scared nobody would challenge a vast military budget.
Putin: Da. The old days when I could get my GRU and KGB buddies everything they needed out of the huge military budget are long gone - it was bad for the economy, but great for us! These days, we have more resources but the people are scrambling over whatever crumbs organized crime leaves behind. We need a unifying opponent, who will let me get those citizens and mob bosses solidly back under my thumb. We too need a new Cold War - the Chechnyans just aren't doing it for us.
Bush: Great! Ma!
Putin and Bush together: More Ovaltine, please!

WHEN will humanity FINALLY end this BLACK-WHITE thinking? "opponent" is a medieval word. It should have been left at the door of the 21st century. Even in the EU we have trouble laying down our weapons. *sigh* back to the shelters.

and in truth very old american imperialistic foreign policy.. and the trillions of dollars america and it's allies.. flavor of the day.. are pouring into the stockpiling of strategic materials.. new weapon and detection systems including nuclear.. significantly increased strategic FOREIGN military bases.. and a stated intention to weaponize space..

after all.. america is the ONLY nation currently with FOREIGN militray bases of any significance..

under the specter of "ur either fur us.. or agin us"

and just as in the past.. all started by the robber barons of america and it's allies of the day..

sold to the american public.. this time.. under the guise of fighting (read: military escalation) an "unending" global war on terrorism..

after all Wolfowitz did in fact call it World War III.. WAR= We Are Right

and just as in the past it's really all about profit.. only now with the Cheney's master plan fully implemented.. the outsourcing of the US military.. and implementation of a substantial global mercenary force.. operating outside of any goverment oversite or control.. even more so..

when corporations go to war it's always about money.. regardless of the rational.. ethical.. or moral justifications made..

Here is a 30 minute film (shown in the 80s by the BBC, in the TV programme 'QED') that will just remind you why we must never, ever have a nuclear war. It is in three parts on YouTube. Here is a link to the first part:

Sure as hell it does feels like it when it was the whole intent! Mr.Putin said so himself:

... Russia has not specifically aimed its missiles at Europe since the end of the cold war but, asked if it might do so again if the US missile shield went ahead, Mr Putin said: "Of course we are returning to those times..."

Que the "this is madness" jokes here - they've never been as appropriate. I'm a Russian, and I'm scared. Not because of the MAD being back, but because, if our rulers are now willing to toy so easily with such serious things, then all limits are off, and they don't care what the West says anymore, even nominally. This means the next Dissenters' March in Moscow might as well be met with real bullets...

You all forget the one thing that explains Russia's reactions: Russians are afraid that US with its allies will eventually get the missile defense system working and they will find a way to scale it to disable first Chinese and then secondly Russian nuclear threat. When we set our time frame to 2030 or 2050 and start project future advances in technology and manufacturing, it isn't so far fetched idea that the West could have in the future capabilities to build and deploy working SDI against any other nuclear power. This is what Russia is afraid.

It should also be pointed out that because Russia doesn't have large economic, industrial and technological base, and it will not have these in foreseeable future, there is no way to challenge the west after a working version of SDI has been build and deployed. It should also be pointed out that if and when west builds it SDI, China will probably build it's own version of SDI quite shortly after the west. So if we look at 2050, the strategic outlook may be very different: we have the West and China safely behind SDI and the rest of the world either trying to remain neutral or aligned to either party. In this situation Russians would be in very difficult situation: they must supply oil and gas to China or China will use it's military might to get what it wants and the West that challenges Russia in it's neighbourhood (Ukraine, Georgia etc..) leaving it either to accept that and join west, or be in mercy of Chinese.

The only way that Russia can play time and maybe avoid all this is to have west not deploy any kind of missile defense. If west doesn't deploy missile defense, the Chinese don't any motivation to start building their own. Thought it should be pointed out also that Chinese have, even with out west building SDI, impetus to do something: either have enough nuclear war heads to challenge both west and Russia, or to disable the nuclear threat all together by building SDI.

The reasons why putin is so popular at home are simple: When he took office russia was bankrupt, people had lost all their savings, wages and rents were not paid. Since then wages have quadrupled, russia is not just defacto debt free(~debt is at 8 % of gdp), but has currency reserves of over 400 billion dollars plus a stabilization fund of 117 billion dollars. Capital influx reached allready 40 billion dollars jan-may.The economy grew by 7.9 % in the frist quarter. And this growth is now driven by demand, and not longer by the gas and oil sector. Oil and gas revenues now stay in the country, without putin russia would not profit from the high oil prices, all money would end up in western bank accounts like under jelzin. Even birth rates are rising. The so called "opposition" figures like berezovsky and kasparov have no backing in the russian population, they are seen as thieves and hated. Putin brought stability, and the state has regained control over the country, which was lost in 1999. If the politics of the nineties were continued, russia could not exist anymore. In fact, putin saved russia. The west allready believed it was dead, and expanded nato to it's borders and ignored russia's concerns. This time is now over, and the west should accept russia as an equal partner, because without russia most problems we face today can't be solved, and the russian economy is a huge market for western goods. Russia can help us in many spheres, but has also the capability to create giant troubles for the west. As an european i don't want to see a europe full of weapons. I don't believe we have the right to interfere with russia's internal affairs - everytime the west tries to enforce so called "democracy" another desaster happens, just look at afghanistan, iraq and the political crises in the ukraine.
Putin is no angel, and he makes difficult decisions which might look bad to the west, but are right from a russian perspective. Russia suffered more than most countries(for example it lost more people than any other country in WWII), and it's no germany, it's much bigger, it has over 100 nationalities, and has/had problems you can not solve with a western style government, just look how difficult it is for an european government to make just the simplest reforms. It's time for the west to make concessions, to get russia back in our boat, we need it to fight terrorism, as a market, for resources, and to solve all other outstanding issues. Russia is pragmatic, you can have everything from them if you respect them, and in contrast to the us which wants to control the whole world, russia only wants a backyard without foreign troops to feel save. Russia is back.

Frankly, this is so ridiculous, it's almost funny. Here we have a Russian politician threatening firstly the USA, then Western Europe with nuclear weapons if they install what is almost certainly going to be a big fat white elephant that would not stop an Iranian nuclear weapon in any case (because the Iranians would certainly not be dumb enough to actually launch one, thy would pass it on to Hezbollah or some other radical grouping who would use it in a suicide nuclear bombing).

Basically, I'm pissed off with almost all the "players" at the moment:a)The Americans. The current US government, not content with fighting two insurgencies concurrently, one of which is almost certainly already lost and the other one looks ominously like it's going that way as well, is blindly carrying on with this utterly useless missile defence scheme in Poland and the Czech republic which the majority of the populations do not want [bbc.co.uk], but whose governments have been bought by big promises from the same group of corrupt (Wolfowitz, Gonzales, Feith, Cheney, Bremer et al) incompetents who bled Iraq dry while promising the sun and the moon.

b)The Russians. While I can certainly understand Russians in general wanting a strong government after the chaos and national humiliation of the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent robbery by Oil thieves and chaos of drunk and corrupt politicians, Putin is still in his heart a KGB man who wants a return of Russian might and power and who is just too dumb too see that the only place threatening the Europeans will lead to will be a gradual and then rapid rearmament of Western Europe, with the majority of nations bending over even further for the protection of American weapons than was thought possible. The American, Russian and European Arms lobbies must be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of new satanically expensive weapons systems of questionable value for their respective clients. The slashdot weapon groupies will be loudly masturbating over these same toys as they dream of killing millions in their science fiction dreams of sexual impotence.

c)The Eastern Europeans. Just how far did these nations expect to be able to provoke the Russians before the Russians went ahead and drew a line in the sand? Do the Czechs and the Poles, both of whom are so fond of criticing Western Europe (but happily take its cash and forgetting that England and France went to war for Poland in 1939 and that the Americans did sweet fuck all in 1968 when the Russians reinvaded Czechoslovakia) for not being totally willing to support their Russian baiting think that the USA would risk nuclear war for them so that they could threaten the Russians? I mean, I know the Nazis and the Soviets killed off a lot of intelligent people there, but really, just how dumb are they? The EU will unhappily be pulled into this mess by these three fuckups playing very dangerous games.

The only people who really profit in this is the arms manufacturers. Think about that and look at the situation again.

1)Missile defense systems are largely untested. There's large doubts to if they'd work at all.2)Missile defense systems can be overloaded- shoot too many, and they won't catch them all.3)Missiles have larger range than artillery. Its easier to shoot 10 missiles and let 2 or 3 go through than position and fire artillery.

Works great! A lot of money is transfered (well it is "spent") and nobody really questions the whole thing because it is to much money.
Nothing happens without a reason and a benefit for somebody. So - who benefits?
I mean, is there any doubt that normal, simple people actually could get along? Well, maybe no more, after being bombed and shot into pieces. Which also helps.

Maybe at one point it gets so bad that enough people really have had it. In USA with that news media - can take a long time.....

You under-estimate the Russian missiles. US says that the defense systems are there for the missiles flying from North Korea. Russian missiles a lot more advanced than North Korean ones. Take this little puppy [wikipedia.org] for example. She is beautiful, isn't she!.
An attack with those babies will not be stopped by the current generation of missile defense systems. It is _not_ a completely ballistic rocket. In other words predicting, calculating it's trajectory and using all the billions of dollars of infrastructure designed for ballistic missiles is not as useful anymore.

The competition between missile defense and missiles will mostly end up with a win for the missile. This reminds me of the competition between artillery and armor. There are certain artillery shells that no current armor can protect against it.

You mean the war that wasn't and was just a... a hoax [wired.com]. Oh yeah, I forgot, we accept everything Slashdot feeds us as gospel. Good thing Bush doesn't read Slashdot, he might have decided to get his preemptive strike 'on'..

Oh, puhlease... You may accept information from slashdot/wired/other as gospel, but some of us think for ourselves.
Wired's analysis is so flawed as to be completely useless. The Wired "report" stated that "we see attacks coming from around the world, so the cyber attack is not coming from Russia". Given that we know that the DDOS attack was botnet generated and that botnets are a global problem, of course the attacks were coming from everywhere! The only way to clearly determine where the attacsk were comi

I think they were talking about cruise missiles, which Russia recently tested, not ballistic ones like Satan SS-18.
Cruise subsonic missiles (like Tomahawk) are cheaper and much harder to intercept and they will hit the targets in Europe within 10-15 minutes.

And who won the cold war? Did we win it? That is what we want to tell ourselves -- that someone won and of course it is the almighty America. In fact if you study history you'll find that Soviet Union collapsed because it's economy collapsed. Soviet style communism simply does not work. We can shout all we want that we 'won' but it is more like the Soviet Union just slowly killed itself. So I guess you can say that you won a fight if the opponent gets the plague and dies in the process but it doesn't mean that you beat the opponent, you just 'won' by default.

You probably don't realize how much power and influence Russia has in Europe simply because it controls all the energy. It doesn't have to shoot any rockets anywhere, it just needs to shut down the pipelines. So you can keep cursing at Putin all you want if it makes you feel better, but Russia is a player that we will still have to reckon with.

And by the way one of these puppies [wikipedia.org] won't be stopped by our multi-bullion dollar missile defense system. Probably should have used that money for healthcare and better schools...Hmm, excessive spending on military infrastructure at the expense of taking care of it's citizens sounds familiar... oh yeah.. Soviet Union did that. Perhaps we are not that different after all. Now that's a thought!

Actually, the soviet union collapsed when the regions started having enough political power (due to economic development) to demand some sort of autonomy.
There was the occupation of the tv-tower in Vilnius as response, causing the vote on the retention of power to slide.

This in turn led to the august coup [wikipedia.org] Which failed, and forced the supreme soviet to finally give up it's power monopoly.

So I would say, the Soviet Union collapsed, due to economic reform in the vassal states, without political reform to

I know you're just a troll, but, it's kinda hard to hit "terr'ists" with WMDs. Considering they're not a country... or a city... or in any way organized enough to really have some sort of location that can be targeted.

Honestly, I don't get it. Both why Putin would make an ass out of himself like this, and why we need missile defense systems in Europe. But then again, I'm not a fan of the military of any country. I fail to see its utility, when the money involved could be put to better uses.

Honestly, I don't get it. Both why Putin would make an ass out of himself like this, and why we need missile defense systems in Europe. But then again, I'm not a fan of the military of any country. I fail to see its utility, when the money involved could be put to better uses.

Still, sounds like more politicians trying to flex their muscles.

Ok, time for my weekly conspiracy theory:Why did the Cuba crisis start? According to a recent Documentary on the Discovery Channel (Not the best of sources I know but this time it told the story from the Russian POV as well) it went something like this:

A fellow named Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev who also happens to be the premier of the Soviet Union takes a vacation on the Black Sea.

He gets a visit from a general who points out to him US missile bases on the Turkish side a strategic stone's throw from where they are standing.

Khrushchev decides that if the USA can plant missiles in the USSR's back yard surely the USSR can plant missiles in the USA's back yard?

Vastly underestimating depth of US anti communist hysteria Krushev orders missies to be deployed to Cuba.

The US finds out.

Outrage sweeps in Washington, nobody seems to register the degree to which similar US actions might have contributed to this.

Surprise at the US reaction sweeps Moscow, nobody had seriously thought about what reaction nuclear missiles in Cuba might cause in Washington. After all the USA had planted nuclear missiles in Turkey within sight of the Soviet premier's summer house hadn't it?

The US president John F Kennedy is overwhelmed both by Soviet actions and pressure by hawks in the US to respond with maximum force. To his credit he orders reconnaissance flights to be made by US forces in order to establish the facts on the ground before pressing any red buttons. At first these flights are relatively non threatening U-2 missions but eventually high speed low level over-flights are ordered at altitudes of some 300m in order to obtain detailed imagery. These over-flights along with a few other incidents caused by overzealous people on both sides including one involving aggressive US Navy behavior towards a missile armed Soviet sub in the region convinced many Soviet and Cuban participators in the crisis that the US was trying really, really hard to deliberately provoke a war. In reality of course it seems that people in the US were simply trying really, really hard to figure out what was going on in Cuba and not taking into consideration what over-flights by reconnaissance aircraft, aircraft who incidentally were almost indistinguishable from the fighter and bomber variants of the same aircraft type, made at high subsonic and even super sonic speeds would look like to the Cuban/Soviet military.

Nuclear war (almost) ensues but is averted by a frighteningly small number of cool heads on both sides of the curtain, sometimes by communicating through unofficial channels.

I don't think Putin & Co and Bush and his people. are trying to provoke a war any more than JFK and Khrushchev were. They simply are so entrenched in their respective preconceptions that GWB for example can't accurately assess what effect it will have to plant a missile defense system in Russia's back yard and that Russia has no effective answer to. I don't doubt that the Americans honestly intend this system mainly to defend against missile attacks from rogue states such as N-Korea and Iran, they would be insane if they really intended it to upset the MAD balance with Russia. But Putin & Co, who also seem to be unable to accurately assess US intentions for various reasons, see this as the first step in an attempt to create a situation where the US can nuke them but they can't respond so they have reacted in their own way which is to re-heat the cold war with new missiles. If the US and Russia continue to provoke each other the only thing it will achieve is to m

he finally has some oil money to play with now that he's bought back some oligarch assets

An interesting (and somewhat creative) definition of "bought back". Must be one of those odd linguistic quirks that what Germany did to Austria in 1936 is referred to as the "Anchluss" and not the "Zurückkaufung"...

A military is needed to protect the civilian populations from situations like that [nytimes.com] occurring presently in northern Lebanon. The civilian population in the camp is suffering because no military was present to prevent an armed organization installing itself in it's midst. In an ideal world, no such forces would be present but as we do not live in an ideal world, we will always need armed forces to protect the sheep from the wolves.

Besides that, what good is the threat of mutually assured destruction if one side can block the other's? The balance of power is then skewed, and anyone with too much power, even the venerable Americans, abuses their position.

I don't think they can be used as offensive weapons, but the mere fact that they could render (I seriously doubt that) offensive weapons useless is enough to create a dangerous unbalance on the MAD principle. If Russians have to throw 30 nukes to hit 10 targets and Americans throw, say, 12 to hit 10 targets, then, while not being offensive weapons, they are offensive enough. Keep it also in mind that, just like any proto-dictator, Putin needs an enemy for their country to hate and the US with its utterly terrible foreign policy seems to be perfect for it.

One good way to deal with it is to cooperate on the technology with the Russians, so they can build the defensive systems themselves.

....just like any proto-dictator, Putin needs an enemy for their country to hate and the US with its utterly terrible foreign policy seems to be perfect for it.

And GWB needs a new flashpoint to distract the US electorate from the mess he is making of everything else so in effect this is mutually beneficial situation.

One good way to deal with it is to cooperate on the technology with the Russians, so they can build the defensive systems themselves.

If anything the Russians are just as good at making air defense systems as the west. Their SAM systems in particular were considerably more effective throughout the cold war than western equivalents. The USAF and the Israelis learned that the really painful way and Russia still manages to produce pretty lethal SAM systems today even if one only jud

You're forgetting something. If they can detect the launch of US defensive missiles then they would also be able to detect whether or not any additional missiles are in the air. Defensive missiles don't fire until an enemy missile is already in the air and en route. If Russia or China, etc etc, detected the launch of US missiles they should rather quickly know what is going on by noticing whether or not any enemy missiles are also in the air.

Yeah, but you hit that area with a small nuke and there's bound to be a cat, dog, small child, or a playground in the area that will be hurt as well. The media would have a field day with how horrible the military is. Even if it did take out hundreds or thousands of militant radicals and only one kid (who will likely be raised in the same way.)

an analogy.
Angry Child A has found a new type of brick he can throw in the face of Angry Child B (after Angry Child B has been napping)
Angry Child B responds by saying I still have loads of bricks, and i'll throw them at Napping Child C.
Busy Child D sits quietly in a corner he's making pacifiers for A
Angry Child E is finally starting to make amends after his fight with Angry Child F
In 1984, it was argued that you needed 3 superpowers in to keep the people living in them subdued permanently, wonder wh